8 Tips to Stay Motivated to Exercise

I am incredibly lucky that I’ve always loved working out and being active. I love to challenge myself, sweat and work hard. I love to set goals, reach them and then set new ones. I crave the feeling of accomplishment that comes after a tough workout. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always that voice in my head telling me to stop, especially when I’m running, but I’ve gotten pretty good at pushing past it. Today I’m sharing tips to stay motivated to exercise so you can stick to those workouts, feel great and continue to build your fitness.

Move, Every Day

I entirely believe that being active, in whatever way works for you, is absolutely key to a happy, healthy life. Now that doesn’t mean you have to go to the gym, or run, or even lift weights, but it does mean that you have to move your body, everyday.

Sweat on the Daily

I follow a very simple rule when it comes to exercise and that is to sweat every single day. That doesn’t mean you have to be dripping sweat beads off your nose each day, but I think achieving at least a healthy glow everyday is important. Whether you attend a yoga class, chase your kids, go surfing, or clean your house, just get sweaty!

Tips to Stay Motivated to Exercise

Motivation to exercise is something you have to work on often. If you don’t continue to work on your motivation, it will most definitely fade away and you may just end up back on the couch. For todays Get FIT Friday, I wanted to share a few tips and tricks that help me not only make it to the treadmill, but also allow me to push myself when I don’t really want to.

1. Good music is key.

There is no way I’d make it through most of my workouts if I didn’t have a good beat blaring in my ears. Before you head out for your next run, or plan to hit the gym, make sure you have a good playlist ready to go. Motivational music will not only make the time go by faster, but research has shown that listening to the right music can actually improve athletic performance. You can’t beat Spotify for all your workout music needs. If you don’t have the premium version, get it. 100% worth it.

2. You can do anything for an hour.

This reminder helps me all the time. I always think about how I can do anything for 30 seconds, or 10 minutes, 30 minutes or an hour. I think about how later in the day I’m either going to have a feeling of satisfaction or a feeling of regret, so I should get on with it.

When you want to stop half-way through that 60 second interval, DON’T. You only have 30 more seconds to go and that’s nothin’. Remember, it’s only temporary.

3. Schedule everything.

I plan months, weeks and days ahead and I always write my workout down and take it to the gym with me. When I go to the gym without a plan, without fail, I always have a lacklustre, disorganized and unfocused workout that I usually cut short. So I always jot my workout down on a small piece of paper beforehand, that way I know exactly what I’m doing. I have an end goal and I don’t leave until I finish it.

Recently, I’ve only been planning about a week at a time because I’m not really training for anything right now, but in the past, I’ve planned up to 16 weeks at a time. If you have a long-term goal, you should most definitely take the time to plan out the steps required to reach it. Once you have a solid plan, make sure you schedule out time in your life to fit it in.

4. Love the pain.

Exercise is hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it. If you’re new to exercise, you have to get used to feeling uncomfortable, and then learn not to be afraid of it. When I was a personal trainer, I often worked with beginner exercisers and they were never ready for how tough it was, they thought they were dying.

Yes, it’s hard and that’s the point. That’s your body and mind getting stronger, faster and more flexible. Learning to love it might be a little more challenging for some of you, but I promise if you keep at it, eventually you’ll begin to love working hard. Yes, it’s hard at the time, but it feels so good afterwards. After a hard workout I feel on top of the world, and even though I probably wanted to cry at the time, I’m never without a smile once I’m done.

5. Get inspired.

Reading fitness and healthy living blogs and listening to healthy living podcasts 100% helps to keep me motivated. Actually it’s one of the most motivating things I do! I also love to keep my Instagram feed loaded up with inspiration accounts

If I’m every feeling a little workout ho-hum, all it takes is a read through some of my favourite fitness blogs or listening to a motivating podcast to have me ready to go. Seeing fit women working their butts off and living to tell about is some of the best, most positive and inspiring motivation you can find.

7. Change your mind.

Don’t view exercise as something you have to do, it really should be something special you do for yourself; something to be enjoyed. To me a workout feels like a luxury that I always look forward too. It’s me time and it’s very important to me. I can just zone out, or zone in, and forget all my worries for that hour or two.

You have to find a form of exercise that you love so that it becomes something you crave and enjoy. Try group fitness classes, join a running club, try out a new sport or workout with a trainer. Continue to experiment until you find something that works for you.

8. Just do it.

Now for a little tough love, so it’s time to suck it up buttercup! Nike has always said it best, just. do. it. There are no excuses not to exercises, so just do whatever you have to do to stay active.

Motivated? Try this MetCon Workout!

Okay, so now that you’re all fired up, it’s time to put that motivation to work and try this killer metabolic conditioning workout. This countdown workout requires minimal equipment but will leave you sweating and shaking. Push yourself to finish it as quickly as possible while maintaining good form.

All you need to do this workout is some space, a pair of dumbbells for the Man Makers and something to do the box jump on.

How to you Stay Motivated?

Those are all the tips I have for now but I’d love to hear how you get and stay motivated! Please share your best tips in the comments.

8 comments on “8 Tips to Stay Motivated to Exercise”

Loved your post!! I actually wrote up my own motivation post and it will go live in a few days! I’ll be sure to link back to yours because it’s awesome 😉
I’m also in love with working out and soooo happy that I am. It helps A LOT!

my version of this is going to look very different, more like slothed down to the snails version but i am ready to start! fall weather makes me feel encouraged, like i could walk for hours and be in the beauty of the day and my legs will thank me. I want to push it a little harder this year though, maybe add some speed to the last part or the middle? mmmm. i have the pool schedule figured out so i hope to swim a couple of times a week, and while the bear makes coming home a bit interesting, my bike is ready to go again. I am so impressed by your work out but it still encourages me to pick a starting place and simply move, move my body every day, that doesn’t sound too hard! 😉

Its a great article. Could see how much you love to work out. Very inspirational as well . As of me, I run. Not a professional or a great runner though. I run 30 minutes 4 times a week. Reading your article i plan to increase it a bit more and combine with few other ercercises. I really started from couch to 5k. My life style is busy but so as all out here. Its not an excuse. I have to find time. I know the feeling of accomplishment. Plan to do better. Cheers

Recently I have been lacking my daily exercise, and I couldn’t find any motivation for it. I am very glad I found this article, I was able to get my roommate to run every morning with me. Ever since then, we have both motivated each other to run every morning!

Hey, I’m Deryn.

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